Rumor: 'The New Mutants' Delay Due to Expansive Reshoots

Many fans were disappointed earlier today when 20th Century Fox revealed they were delaying two X-Men movies well into next year.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix was originally scheduled to release this November before being pushed back to February 14, 2019, while The New Mutants was pushed back from its original April 13th date, to February 22, 2019, and again to later in the year on August 2nd.

A new report from Collider provided an explanation for these delays, and while they are somewhat expected and reasonable for the X-Men movie, The New Mutants is in a much different and more interesting situation.

This was to be the first year that Fox would put out three X-Men based movies in the same 12-month span, starting with The New Mutants. That movie was pushed back initially after the success of Stephen King's It and other horror movies, with the genre having a banner year in 2017. Executives sought to make the film scarier, despite the movie testing well with audiences.

This comes in the wake of the success of Deadpool and Logan, which offered different flavors in the superhero genre, while the X-Men movies remained the flagship with a more familiar take on the franchise.

The report from Collider states that director Josh Boone delivered a cut of the film he was satisfied with, but Fox execs want the movie to standout and apparently didn't think it was scary enough.

Apparently Fox is demanding substantial reshoots that could change the movie, including the possibility of reshooting unto 50 percent of footage that was already filmed. They could possibly add multiple new characters to be included throughout the film's entirety, in addition to the core cast of Magik, Mirage, Wolfsbane, Sunspot, and Cannonball.

The report also goes on to state Boone has had significant creative differences with Fox over their requests to change the film, though there has been no word on the possibility if he could be replaced as the production roles on. In the wake of the turmoil that has rocked movies like Solo: A Star Wars Story and Justice League, this might not be the best move.

This is much more intriguing than the reasons for the X-Men: Dark Phoenix delay, as Sophie Turner's schedule is going to be dominated by filming the final season of Game of Thrones for most of the year. Given that she's playing the pivotal character of Jean Grey, Fox needs to work around her availability.